TripAdvisor Reviews Hotel Crystal Palace Shimla

Travel Blogs from Shimla

As ever, as we paid the vast bill (It was around £7 including the beers) they asked if we could take their photo! We never worked out quite why they are so enamoured with photos but we obliged and left them to a chorus of cheery goodbyes and waves. What endearing people they are here.

We staggered back to the station and waited patiently for the "express" to arrive. it did eventually turn up and then took ...

... uber frustrated my nice Canadian attitude didn't last for long. Instead I left to check out a few other hotels and we moved. Having a very bad first impression of Shimla we were still hopeful about our future travel plans and went to see a travel agent we had spoke to over the phone . We were all hoping to get up to the Spiti Valley, nestled in the Himalayas close to the Tibetan boarder. Unfortunately the roads normally don’t open until June, still a few ...

... before Moti and Prem were to pick us up for our afternoon tour, we ordered a simple room service lunch. Although it was hard to fault the general staff service at the Oberoi Cecil, the room and restaurant service was very slow and the food was just average. Our tuna sandwiches were so stale that it was almost impossible to choke them down. Perhaps this was just a one-off occasion we thought hopefully.

... trade route path to Tibet, or 40 km as the crow flies. Now the Indo-Tibetan Border Police patrol just 3 km from this village and would stop you if you tried to walk there. Here people live as they have for centuries, dwarfed by the surrounding 4000-metre mountains. Their life is hard. They have to grow, preserve, and store what they need for the whole winter, when they are snowed in. Their houses have tin or shale roofs against the snow, but there is no central heating. We walked ...